We have had our sweet foster fur baby, Bentley, for almost 5 whole weeks now. During that five weeks we have seen his relationship with Jack evolve from “Why are you crawling on me puppy” to “Mummy, why does the puppy have to sleep in his kennel?”.
We’ve always known that Jack has an incredible amount of tolerance for just about anything. Sometimes too much tolerance. When Bentley first arrived Jack would put up with him. Bentley would crawl on him and Jack would just glaze his eyes over and let him walk, and nip, and chew and he would never even let out a moan of discomfort. We’d have to be the ones to correct and monitor, whereas a lot of adult dogs would take it upon themselves to tell the puppy to “screw off”.
As the weeks went on Jack started getting interested in his mouthing and games. And actually started to play with him. We’ve never seen Jack wrestle with another dog. He would always run away and come whining at us to help him. It was almost heart-warming to see this 3olb puppy teaching our big guy how to play. And even more heart-warming to watch Jack fall on the ground and fake defeat at the clumsy paws of his foster brother.
Last night we saw their relationship evolve yet again. We were getting ready for bed, Bentley was snug in his crate for the night, Nate and I were just about to turn out the lamp. Jack came into the bedroom seeming irritated. He stood at the foot of the bed staring at us with those big brown eyes then he would look towards the crate, look back at us, and back to the crate again. We asked him to lay down on his bed, and he did. So we turned out the light. Five minutes later we hear paws on the floor. He went out to the puppies crate and lay down in front of it and started to cry, so of course Bentley also started to cry. Awesome.
Now don’t get me wrong, I’m happy to see that they are getting along. But at midnight the last thing I want to listen to is the dogs crying because they want to snuggle. And of course it only reaffirmed our fear that they are getting too attached and it will be harder for both of them when Bentley has to go to his new home.
We knew going into fostering that something like this was bound to happen. And we figured the first dog would be the hardest. Jack is fairly resilient, and I’m sure with the more dogs we foster he will get used to the system. But all of that information still doesn’t make the knowledge of the impending events any easier to handle. My only hope is that they find him the most fantastic family ever so that the sting of separation is lessened by the knowledge that he will have a beautiful life.

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2 thoughts on “The Evolution”

Exactly why I haven’t gotten into fostering, despite knowing how important it is. But I’m not worried about my pup falling for the foster: it’s me. I’m pretty sure that any fur baby who comes into my house becomes my fur baby, and never ever goes away. My wife is still trying to talk me into it. Hoping this works out beautifully for you!